Escape the CEO Doom Loop

Matt Loria was ready for the tension between sales and ops. What caught him off guard was the people side of the business, and how much of the CEO job is repeating yourself.

Matt is CEO and co-founder of Auxiom, a managed IT and cybersecurity firm serving middle market companies. He tells Glen and John how his Vistage group talked him out of his first business idea, how a phone call from a former client became a partnership, and how he built a company that is still debt-free.

He also names the thing CEOs do when things get tight: jarring. Jump in and rescue, but don’t stay. If you keep finding yourself back in the weeds, this one’s for you.

In this episode:

• Why Matt says he’s been in the Doom Loop “even this week,” and his three go-tos: prayer, his wife, and the cold plunge
• The five-minute rule for a pity party
• What his Vistage group said about his first business idea, and the phone call that changed the plan
• Why managing people surprised him more than the fight between sales and ops
• Why bad news should travel early, and what a buffalo does in a thunderstorm
• Jarring: how to jump in and rescue without moving in
• Matt’s three pieces of advice for the next edition of The CEO Playbook

Connect with Matthew Loria

About the Podcast

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

Podcast Hosts

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics.
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall/

John Ninkovich is the founder and CEO of John Ninkovich Coaching, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640/

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When Ken Misiewicz was asked to run Pleune Service Company, he told the founder he needed ten years to get ready. The founder asked if next Tuesday worked.

Then the recession hit, the bank pulled financing, and Ken says he didn’t sleep for three years. What he learned in the 17 years since is that moving fast without your people isn’t leading. It’s a lonely walk.

Ken runs a 100% employee-owned mechanical contractor with about 125 people. He tells Glen and John why he never felt lonely in the CEO seat, how his task-driven wiring had him charging ahead while the culture quietly didn’t want the change, and what it took to build an executive team that pushes back on him. If you’re an action-oriented CEO wondering why nobody is keeping up, this one’s for you.

In this episode:

• Being handed the CEO job “next Tuesday,” and why almost nobody feels ready
• Running a company through a recession with the bank pulling financing and 50 people back at the shop without work
• Why Ken doesn’t feel lonely at the top, and the peer connection problem he has instead
• Moving from push to pull, and why it took most of a decade
• How he built an executive team that argues respectfully, and what an outside president saw when he sat in
• The oak tree and the saplings: why a strong individual contributor can stall the people around them
• Ken’s advice for the next edition of The CEO Playbook: people, people, and people

Connect with Ken Misiewicz

About the Podcast

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

Podcast Hosts

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics.
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall/

John Ninkovich is the founder and CEO of John Ninkovich Coaching, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640/

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Nathan Austin has broken through four or five plateaus in twenty-six years of building Mytech Partners. Not one of them did he see coming, and not one of them did he solve alone.

An acquisition that pushed change faster than the business could absorb. Four equal partners dividing up a company that only needed one person running it. A business that had gotten good at execution without ever defining where it was going. Every time, somebody outside the business named the problem before anyone inside it could.

Glen Dall and John Ninkovich talk with Nate about what it costs to learn that lesson late, and why the CEOs who break through fastest are the ones who stopped assuming they could see their own gaps.

In this episode

• The acquisition where six months of internal work produced one question from a client: what have you been doing?
• Why the seller who fights you and the seller who leaves early are both a problem
• What changes at $5M to $6M in revenue, when proximity stops working as a management system
• The moment a peer group told four owners to pick one leader and go do their jobs
• Learning to follow when you are used to being the person with the answers
• Why culture in a five-person company is whoever has the strongest personality
• The difference between running a system well and knowing where you are going

Below this, the description carries four fixed blocks that run on every episode: where to subscribe, about the show, host bios, and the CEO Playbook. Those do not change episode to episode, so nothing to review there.

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Dan Larsen took a CEO title he had always wanted, then spent a year learning it was the wrong seat for who he is. He came out of it with a coach, an honest look at what he is actually good at, and a rule he now builds everything around. Point the strategy the right way, then get the right people in the right seats.

Glen Dall and John Ninkovich sit down with Dan, now president of DCI, a 70-year-old manufacturer he is pulling together out of several acquisitions. Dan is candid about the 2am version of the job, the failure that reset him, and why his first move rebuilding a leadership team was to hire the person who hires.

If you are running a company you have outgrown the ability to run alone, and you keep ending up back in work you thought you handed off, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• The role that looked like a promotion and became his hardest failure
• Why his first hire rebuilding the leadership team was a VP of HR
• The Barry Conchie question that exposes why CEOs keep doing work they already handed off
• What "the who, not the how" looks like when you actually map seats and players
• Moving a 70-year manufacturer from reactive order-taking to going after the customers it wants
• The 2am version of the Doom Loop, and what puts him back to sleep

Connect with Dan Larsen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-larsen-2109128/

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

PODCAST HOSTS

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall/

John Ninkovich is a principal at Performix Group, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640/

THE CEO PLAYBOOK

The show grew out of a research project. Glen and John interviewed 72 CEOs to understand why capable leaders get stuck as their companies grow. What they found became The CEO Playbook, a short read on the fears and patterns that stall growth, and what to do about them.

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Some of the people who built your company are not the people who scale it. That's the call growth-stage CEOs put off longest, because the person in question worked hard and got you here.

Pete Wolf bought Robinson Rubber Products, wrote the letter of intent before he'd even left his old job, and closed the deal six and a half years later, COVID included. He talks with Glen and John about the strategy framework he brought over from his Fortune 500 days at Boston Scientific, the calendar rules he built to protect his focus, and the line he comes back to when a hard-working employee no longer fits where the company is headed: take care of the 99, not the 1.

If you're running a $10M to $30M company and you already know who on your team got you here but might not get you there, this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why Pete calls it "take care of the 99, not the 1" when a hardworking employee stops fitting where the company is headed
• The framework he brought from Boston Scientific: one roof, a handful of pillars, and foundational principles that never move
• What changed the day the buck started stopping with him, with no Fortune 500 net underneath him anymore
• The calendar rules he built to protect his focus, including Money Mondays and a hard no on bad news on Fridays
• Why a peer group and a coach matter when you can't bring a hard day home to your team or your family
• Three pieces of advice for a CEO Playbook, including the one about believing you can hit the goal you set

About the Podcast

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

Podcast Hosts

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics.
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall/

John Ninkovich is the founder and CEO of John Ninkovich Coaching, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640/

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Mike Amine walked away from a corner office, a 26-year run, and a guaranteed paycheck at MetLife to start over from zero at almost 50. No marketing department, no compliance department, no built-in resources. Just a leap of faith and his wife Marcy.

Ten years later he built Wealth Strategies Financial Group into a firm managing close to a billion dollars, ranked number one in his market among 14,000 advisors. Getting there meant learning to let go of control, and accepting that leadership isn't a title. It's the people you choose to bring with you.

Mike talks with Glen and John about the financial stress of bankrolling your own payroll, the hardest decision he's made as a CEO, and why he's still reinventing himself after 36 years in the business. If you've ever wondered whether it's too late to hit reset, this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why Mike left a 26-year career at MetLife and a corner office to start his firm from nothing
• The financial stress of bankrolling your own payroll after years of someone else guaranteeing it
• The workshop lesson that changed how he leads: "you have to delegate to elevate"
• Why the hardest decision as a CEO is letting go of people he liked and trusted
• How the Peter Principle shows up as a firm scales from a handful of people to dozens
• The line between confidence and arrogance, and why empathy separates the best leaders
• Mike's pitch for the next edition of The CEO Playbook

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

PODCAST HOSTS

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics.
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall/

John Ninkovich is the founder and CEO of John Ninkovich Coaching, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640/

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Most CEOs become successful by being excellent operators.

Then growth demands a different job.

You have to stop solving every problem yourself and focus on the work only the CEO can do.

In this conversation, Keith Nichol shares how he made that shift as he built Carrera Capital Advisors, why accountability is a form of care, and how one hard decision can reset the standard for the whole company.

If you are still carrying work your team should own, this episode will hit home.

If you want a practical framework for stepping out of the CEO Doom Loop, download the CEO Playbook.

Keith Nichol is the CEO of Carrera Capital Advisors, an independent registered investment advisory firm serving clients across 41 states.

He began his career as a solo financial advisor and built his business from the ground up before leading the acquisition of a large client book and launching the firm as an independent RIA.

Keith combines the discipline of a former Division I athlete with a strong focus on accountability, client service, and long term leadership development.

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Troy Schroeder built Clutch from a couple of people to just shy of 60, doubling the business several times in nine years. He was also the firm's best salesperson. Which made him, in his words, the thing standing in the way.

In this conversation, Troy sits down with Glen Dall and John Ninkovich to talk about the trap most growing-company CEOs fall into. The skills that get a company off the ground are the same ones that cap it later. The generalist who has to do everything early becomes the bottleneck who can't stop doing everything later.

Troy is candid about carrying the entire revenue forecast on his own back until he couldn't, and what changed when he finally let his team in. He gets into why focus beats diversification, how "new business is everybody's business" actually works in practice, and why a great hire outperforms an average one by a factor most owners underestimate.

If you run a company between $10M and $100M and you've ever felt like every decision is life or death, this one will land.

In this episode:

• Why the best thing you had early becomes the worst thing as you scale
• Carrying the revenue number alone, and what it costs you
• "New business is everybody's business," and the system behind it
• The three paths to new revenue, ranked by what actually works
• Why focus and category expertise beat trying to serve everyone
• Profit sharing and transparency without breaking the team
• Separating your identity from your business so the weight doesn't crush you

Connect with Troy Schroeder:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/troymschroeder

LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE

New here? Follow the show so the next conversation finds you.

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3BuyVhr8BcMKpzfodvzCwc?si=e0d5d03780d74147
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escape-the-ceo-doom-loop/id1810542775

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is honest conversation about what it takes to lead a growing company without losing your mind. Each episode, Glen and John sit down with CEOs, the advisors who work alongside them, and the authors who shaped how they think.

The through-line is the Doom Loop. The cycle where capable CEOs carry too much, solve instead of lead, and feel responsible for everything while trusted with nothing. The show is for owners and presidents running companies between $10M and $100M who feel some of that and rarely say it out loud. No theory, no hype. Patterns you'll recognize, and the moves that break the loop.

PODCAST HOSTS

Glen Dall is the founder and CEO of Apex North Business Coaching. He works with growth-stage CEOs on the leadership and structure it takes to scale, using the Apex North Star Way, powered by Metronomics.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glendall

John Ninkovich is a principal at John Ninkovich Coaching, based in Detroit, and has spent his career leading and advising growing companies.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ninkovich-398640

THE CEO PLAYBOOK

The show grew out of a research project. Glen and John interviewed 72 CEOs to understand why capable leaders get stuck as their companies grow. What they found became The CEO Playbook, a short read on the fears and patterns that stall growth, and what to do about them.

If anything in this episode hit home, the Playbook is your next step. Message us!

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A lot of companies say they care about leadership, then lower the standard when it is time to choose.

Barry Conchie does not do that.

This conversation gets into what leadership actually predicts, why most teams are built too safely, and why succession planning begins much earlier than most CEOs think.

Most leadership conversations stay abstract.

This one does not.

We talked about hiring mistakes, weak standards, the real meaning of talent, and why CEOs get into trouble when they slide back into the job they used to do.

The strongest part of this conversation is not the framework.

It is the standard.

Barry argues that too many organizations are led by people who are good enough to keep the seat warm, but not strong enough to create real separation.

Connect with Barry Conchie

Episode Chapters
[00:02:32] Why expertise eventually has to stand on its own
 [00:05:53] Why Barry wrote the book after eight years of research and restraint
 [00:10:46] The five talents that separate leadership from individual contribution
 [00:05:00] Is the CEO doom loop a crisis, or a capability problem that was always there
 [00:13:21] Why great leaders do not need to be strong in every area
 [00:17:39] The warning signs of weak thinking inside a leadership team
 [00:23:01] Why succession planning is really an eight year decision
 [00:27:37] What happens when the CEO is the problem
 [00:30:52] Talent is not the same as strength, and practice does not erase wiring
 [00:44:06] Self awareness is deciding what not to do
 [00:51:14] Why level five leadership may have moved the conversation, but not solved it
 [00:59:07] Build the CEO first, then build a team stronger than the CEO
 [01:06:07] Three things CEOs should do if they want to become excellent
 [01:11:02] Where the doom loop becomes hard to escape
 [01:19:03] Who Barry will work with, and who he will not

Barry Conchie is the founder and president of Conchie Associates, a boutique executive assessment firm focused on helping companies reduce hiring mistakes and make better senior leadership decisions.

He is the co author of The Five Talents That Really Matter, a book built from large scale executive assessment research on what actually predicts leadership performance.

Barry’s work is grounded in data, direct conversation, and a clear point of view. He works with a select group of companies and is known for being forthright about fit, standards, and the real cost of weak selection decisions.

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A lot of CEOs think they have a growth problem.

What they really have is a leadership problem.

David Sokol shares what changed in his business when he stopped being the center of everything, invested in senior leadership, and treated culture like operating infrastructure, not soft stuff.

A few lines stayed with me.

The ceiling was not demand.
It was leadership.
The risk was not delegation.
It was staying in the middle too long.
And growth only started to feel healthy when the business stopped depending on one person to shovel the coal.

This one is for the CEO who knows the company has outgrown founder led decision making, but has not fully made the shift.

If that is where you are, schedule a call.

Connect with David Sokol

00:10:10 From research to the real work of helping CEOs lead

00:12:34 Taking over a business that was already in trouble

00:16:09 Fixing what looked unfixable, one step at a time

00:19:00 Buying the company when the risk was still high

00:20:31 Choosing organic growth over more acquisition noise

00:23:00 Building culture through behaviors, not slogans

00:27:00 Becoming a trusted advisor by solving people problems

00:29:26 Bringing family into the business without creating entitlement

00:35:11 Breaking the growth ceiling by investing in leadership

00:42:36 Letting go of control so the business can scale

00:48:30 Playing the long game instead of protecting short term profit

00:52:00 Knowing when the CEO is stretched too thin

00:57:33 Shifting from founder energy to a true company

01:01:35 What he wishes he had invested in sooner

Escape the CEO Doom Loop is for CEOs running companies in the $10–100M range who are tired of feeling like the business runs on them. 

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